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''If its a request for a TV interview or a newspaper, it would generally be a 'no'. There is more that can go wrong than the benefit from a good interview.''

Another Liberal operative working in western Sydney seats said: ''You just don't expose the new guys who have no experience.''

SBS News reported that ''the Coalition is banning some of its candidates from speaking to the media or their electorate'', with Andrew Nguyen, Liberal candidate for Fowler, being refused permission to take part in an SBS-run community forum.

And in western Sydney, Fairfax Community Newspapers has been trying to organise ''job interviews'' in high schools, where students question candidates about their suitability for the job of local member, with their answers to be published in several local papers.

At the first interview last Thursday in the seat of Greenway, Labor MP Michelle Rowland and Greens candidate Chris Brentin turned up to Glenwood High School, but the Liberals' Jaymes Diaz, who is favoured to win the seat, did not.

Mr Diaz conducted an infamously poor interview earlier this month with Channel Ten that gained international notoriety and 220,000 YouTube views in a little more than a week. On Tuesday night, he failed to attend a candidates' forum in Blacktown.

On Friday morning, sitting Liberal MP for Macquarie Louise Markus did not show up for a similar event, leaving her Labor and Greens opponents to face the grilling of Richmond High School students. Penrith City Star editor Roslyn Smith said the directive to decline the invitation appeared to come from headquarters.

''I think there might have been some candidates who might have been keen,'' Miss Smith said.

She said she had spoken to Mark Tobin, who is working as an adviser to candidates in western Sydney while on leave from Premier Barry O'Farrell's office, who told her the interviews were not part of the Coalition's ''strategy''.

On Tuesday, Mr Tobin said: ''We get a number of media invitations and we can't accept every offer.''

Fairfax Community Newspapers has also been told by Liberals' NSW headquarters that candidate for Parramatta Martin Zaiter would not turn up for an interview at James Ruse High School.

Liberal candidate for Lindsay Fiona Scott was not planning to show up for one at Penrith High School, and Isabelle White, the party's candidate for Chifley, would not be turning up for one in her electorate.

Labor's candidate for the seat of Mitchell in the Hills, Andrew Punch, has also said he would not attend, though his opponent, sitting Liberal Alex Hawke, may yet.

Mr Turnbull said he would not comment on decisions his colleagues had made.

''Generally I'm very available, as people know,'' he said.

Mr Turnbull, who spoke while on a train heading to a campaign event, said when he was campaigning for the seat of Wentworth in 2004, he did not find door-knocking a ''particularly productive'' way of meeting people, preferring just to be ''out and about''.

''I think personal contact is important, but clearly you reach people using mass media.''

Greg Turnbull, a former media adviser to Paul Keating and Kim Beazley, said it was not surprising some candidates avoided the press when campaigns had become ''gaffe-athons''.

''The whole game seems to be to get a candidate to make a mistake and embarrass the leader,'' he said.

Political marketing expert Andrew Hughes said the ''Jaymes Diaz effect'' had candidates ''running scared''. ''The Coalition are running a small target campaign anyway. But this is really small target minimisation at such a micromanaged level, it's just ridiculous,'' said Mr Hughes, a marketing lecturer at the Australian National University's Research School of Management.

Interview requests with Coalition MPs referred to in this story were denied.